US Congresswoman Lois Capps found out the hard-and-super-embarrassing way that the House of Representatives doesn’t allow take-backs. Capps was the only person in congress to vote against championing the release of a Christian minister in Iran—a bill she co-sponsored—because she pressed the wrong button during the vote. And then wasn’t allowed to fix it.

It’s hard to feel too too bad for Rep. Capps, since you should probably be paying attention during a vote on a bill you co-sponsored. But shouldn’t we maybe install some sort of ARE YOU SURE mechanism to the decisions our national leaders make? [The Tribune via The Daily What]

Last week, The Daily reported that Kanye West‘s charity spent more than a half-million dollars in 2010—but none of that money went to actual charitable causes.

After analyzing federal tax filings, the iPad newspaper found that in 2010, the Kanye West Foundation had expenditures totaling $572,383, but the majority of that went to employee salaries and other overhead expenses.

The charity didn’t even donate a single cent to an actual charity that year. And now, West’s foundation is in the process of being dissolved.

Since it’s easy to get bogged down in the numbers, Statista took The Daily’s findings and compiled information from the foundation’s tax filings to create the below infographic explaining where Kanye West’s money went and what happened to his so-called charity foundation. Complete with West’s stunner shades, obviously.

Super Bowl: The only day in America where TV viewers actually want to watch commercials. This year’s NFL championship, pitting the New York Giants against the New England Patriots, is in a sense a “rematch” of the 2008 edition of the big game. Due to this unfortunate match-up (blame Billy Cundiff and Kyle Williams for their failures), it’s possible that TV ratings could actually be lower than last year’s game. This would clearly be a total bummer for advertisers who spent $3.5 million for a 30-second spot. But, on the bright side, maybe people will be talking more about the ads than the actual game at the water cooler the next day, right?

Of course, the veritable “water cooler” has evolved in the digital age. The folks at Venables Bell & Partners have decided to provide a handy infographic that maps the who, where and how of post-game advertising conversation. Out of the bevy of stats they’ve given us, a few stand out. For example, “Almost one in five (19%) Americans searched for ads before the game in 2011, about double (11%) who did in 2010. Of that group, 48% searched for ads on Facebook, putting the site just ahead of popular video sharing site YouTube, brand sites, and media sources as the lead destination to find ads.” In other words, Facebook is becoming a more popular video search engine than YouTube, a fact than is no doubt pissing off the powers that be at Google.

Also, “Americans are almost as likely to ‘like’ a brand on Facebook that advertises during the Super Bowl (20%) as they are to ‘like’ a team (29%), with 23% of young adults likely to ‘like’ a brand.” Not a bad way to measure social media ROI compared to TV ROI, is it? Well, at least it’s somewhat “believable.” Check out a full-size image after the jump.

Several Internet bargain hunters wanting to visit Vegas on the cheap found out the hard way that some deals are just too good to be true.

Several Groupon and Voice Daily Deals Users users bought round-trip bus tickets from Southern California to Las Vegas for $45. The price was great, but the trip was a mini disaster due to the negligence of LUX Ground Transportation, the bus company that provided the deal.

The problems started right at the beginning with many buses arriving hours later than scheduled or, sometimes, not showing up at all. When the buses did arrive, they brought their passengers safely to Las Vegas, but never returned to bring them home. Oops.

All’s well that ends well, though. A shuttle from another company was called in to rescue these abandoned passengers. And Groupon eventually canceled the deal and refunded customer’s money. LUX didn’t fare as well. It appears the company was operating without a business license and has shuttered its doors now that the world’s eyes are upon it. [MSNBC]

Well, just compare its market cap to the other top five publicly traded US companies—it’s sitting pretty at $207.99 Billion, right below Walmart, as of yesterday’s market close. BIG. [Data via Mac Daily News via Digital Daily]

Digital Consigliere

Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.